My Conversion to Faith in Jesus Christ

My name is French and I grew up in a strict religious family, where nothing was allowed on Sundays. After Sunday school, as a 12-year-old boy, I had to go to church with them on Sundays.

When I was about 14 years old, during a sermon based on Mark 10 verse 14 and 15, I heard "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them: for for such is the kingdom of God. He that receiveth not the kingdom of God as a child shall surely not enter it."

From that, I understood that once I would no longer be a child, I would not be able to get into heaven. As a result, I stopped going to church from the age of 18 and later did not get married there.

From then on, I decided to live only for myself, doing whatever I felt like doing for myself. In military service, I learned to tinker with airplanes in the Air Force and also learned to drink heavily. Then I worked at KLM and went to live with my fiancé, got married and got a good job in the environmental sector, and in my spare time I started playing sports fanatically, winning all kinds of trophies.

I knew that I grieved my parents by my godless life and also that my mother was always praying for me, but I easily pushed that away. Thus, I lived on, but always remained restless despite my achievements. I often didn't see the point of my life and at 50 I wanted to die. God apparently thought otherwise because after a serious motorcycle accident in America, a pastor was praying over my head and I ended up in the hospital. I realized that I could have been dead. Why not actually? Did God have a plan for me? I recovered and in the years that followed, both my parents-in-law and my own parents died in which I was very involved and had to deal with all kinds of issues as well. My parents also recovered. And when my wife became seriously ill, I nursed and cared for her for many years.

After the death of my wife in 2012, I met my current (believing) wife in 2013. In early 2014, I began to feel guilt because she also stopped going to church because of me. She silently prayed a lot for me and read from the Bible. We got married and had our marriage blessed by an evangelist friend. After a while, I suggested we go to church after all. "Only if you go too," she said and suggested we go to "Opwekking" on Pentecost in Biddinghuizen to experience the last hour of "Opwekking songs.

I didn't know what hit me there: All those standing, singing, raising their hands, dancing, Spirit-filled people! It was very different from the Psalms and Chants I was used to. I was touched by these joyful songs and went home to listen to "The Gaither Singers" and to the Dutch band "The Country Trail Band."

Together, we then began attending all kinds of church services with different experiences, until we regularly attended the Christian Church in Huizen.

One Sunday in late 2016, we were there again when evangelist Hans Griffin preached. At the end of the sermon, he called people to come forward if they felt touched by the Holy Spirit. I indeed felt touched, but resisted fiercely to come forward!

However, that didn't work out and I was simply dragged out of my seat to the front! There Hans began to pray for me and I had to repeat all kinds of things to him that I don't remember anything about now, some years later. I do remember crying terribly and being well taken care of by an elder. This man visited my home several times after that.

On June 2, 2019, I was baptized by immersion, also known as Great Baptism, in the congregation, by both elders. That was a great moment. If only my parents could have lived to see it, because my mother always prayed for me until her death in 2010!